


no light no light

by songs



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: M/M, missing moment after episode 94
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-28
Updated: 2014-04-28
Packaged: 2018-01-21 04:53:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1538312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songs/pseuds/songs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s scary, how long I’d wait for you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	no light no light

Killua doesn’t learn fear— _real fear—_  until he is twelve years old, and meets a boy in green.

Gon is all of what he isn’t: a boy of summertime and cartoon-suns. A thing of daylight, cored by gold. He walks like he’s dreaming, like he’s never killed anything before, like he never could. And Killua, who has had that sort of fate burned into his name, thinks:  _oh._ Just,  _oh_.

_But—_

But there is power in his steps—coiling right beneath the skin, right behind the gleam of his eyes. A power untapped, not as sharp as Killua’s— with his shadows, his purple-mooned eyes and blood-traced hands—but still strong enough to break.

 _He has the power to undo you,_ says a voice in Killua’s head. It doesn’t sound like Illumi, like all of his mind-speak does. This time, the voice in Killua’s head only sounds like himself.

_Gon will change you._

He does.

Killua’s first kill happens when he is six years old and from that he’s learned: nothing lasts. Nothing is permanent. But there is something about Gon that  _is_ , and so Killua follows him. His internal compass shifts and shifts until it faces the sun, unmoving.

Until it faces  _Gon_.

And they have a year.

If Killua knows anything, he knows this: even if he lives to be an ancient—as old as the Chairman, his grandfather—even if he lives to be over one hundred, he will trade all of those years for just that one. It was simple. A time when he was happy more often than he wasn’t.

He knows that much.

But what Killua finds is that there are many things he still does not know.

One of them is: Gon.

He knows the shape of his battle-stance, the curve of his smile, the way the light hits his eyes like they’re something magic. Killua knows that he will follow Gon, protect him, shield him. He knows all of this, but—

_It’s not enough._

Killua sighs, swallowing the thought as he works with the cut on his forehead. There’s too much blood and too much hair and the wound runs too, too deep.  _A knife of a needle_ , he thinks.

Absently, he glances to the bedroom. The door is shut and the lights are out; Gon has been in there since they got back from their-makeshift-hideout-of-a-café. Palm still has yet to find them, so it’s likely she’s just given up altogether.

 _Makes my job easier,_ Killua thinks, before he scrapes his forehead with the moon-point of his nail.

 _“Ow_ ,” he hisses, under his breath. It figures—he might as well just leave it for tomorrow. The bathroom is attached to Gon’s side of the bedroom, anyway, and he really doesn’t want to wake him up just yet.

Gon’s probably slept more in the past few days than Killua’s seen him sleep in the entire year he’s known him; the thought makes him ache, somewhere deeper than the skin-wound on his face.

He remembers Gon’s hollow smile, hollower eyes, and thinks,  _I’ll protect you_.

And then the door creaks open.

He jerks around to see Gon, staring at him with a knowing sort of gaze. Before anything, his eyes settle on the new blood on Killua's forehead.

“You’re still up?” Killua asks, hoping to distract him.

Gon doesn’t respond; his eyes linger on the blood, and Killua gives a breathy laugh.

 “Oh, this? I told you I got hurt when I was training. I’m just trying to fix it up.”

A beat of silence falls between them; there have been a lot of those, lately, Killua finds, and he isn’t sure he likes it.

And then, in a voice that’s almost too small for him, Gon says, “Wait here.”

As he watches Gon retreat back into the room, Killua muses,  _It’s scary, how long I’d wait for you._

But this time, Killua does not wait long at all. Gon returns with bandages in one hand and balm in another. Killua stares as the other boy walks towards him in quick, long steps, before leaning down, half an arm’s length away.

“Let me see that,” Gon tells him, and Killua obliges. Gon’s hands are achingly gentle as he pushes back tufts of bloody hair. He dips the tips of his fingers into the balm before Killua feels him touch the cut.

He does not wince, and he must look surprised because Gon murmurs, “It’s a healing balm from a certain tree, back on Whale Island. I bring it everywhere.”

Killua hums at the new information, a  _Thanks, Gon_ , blooming in his throat. But Gon’s hands are lingering, right where the needle used to be. The bandage sticks like second skin beneath his hair and then there are Gon’s hands— _shaking_.

“Gon?” Killua asks, alarmed, but Gon does not let go. His shoulders shake a bit, his eyes gleaming elsewhere. One, two,  _three_ , Killua counts: then, Gon’s hands fall to somewhere around Killua’s shoulders.

Gon says, his voice sounding faraway, “That’s enough.”

Killua shivers, worried. “…Gon?”

When their eyes meet, it’s like Gon is not looking at him at all. The light of the moon misses Gon’s eyes completely; they’re empty when he repeats:

“That’s enough.” He breathes in sharply, but his eyes do not clear. “Please. I’ve lost—just…that’s  _enough_.”

And that is when Killua knows that he knows; the cut on his forehead blares, and Gon’s hold tightens with all of the unsaid:  _Kite protected me. You protected me. Stop, stop, stop. It’s enough._

Killua feels something inside of him falter.

_This boy has the power to undo you._

And he has.

He really, really has.

“Gon,” he says, for the third time. His voice almost breaks. “ _Gon_.”

In a moment, Gon is alert again. His dream-thick movements vanish in an instant. The starlight sweeps into his eyes when he stammers: “S-sorry! I don’t know what got into me!”

“…It’s fine,” Killua mumbles, but he can’t shake the strain from his voice. Not even when Gon lets go of his shoulders, not even when the other boy’s now-warm gaze shifts over him.

“Killua,” he says, his voice sounding full. But for the life of him, Killua can’t forget the way he sounded, the broken way he  _looked_ , just a second ago. “ _Killua_.”

“Ah?” he manages, moving to stand.

Gon says, a note above a whisper: “…Thank you.”

Killua’s gaze jerks to him. Gon gives a tinny smile, before he adds:

“I think I’m going to sleep, now.”

Killua sucks in a broken sort of breath, before saying, “Sure.”

_He has the power to undo you._

Gon says, “Good night,” and with that, lights in his eyes go out.


End file.
